The Bubbly Bitcoin Thread -- Merged Threads

[goldbug9999]

1 hour ago, Glental said:

I'd like to buy a small amount of BTC and ETH each month (£100-200 combined). Do fees make this unobtainable? After exchange fees, credit card fees, sterling conversion fees and mining fees I'm concerned there won't be much left.

I'm open to using a different exchange, payment method and approach in general. Any suggestions?

At the moment I've just been buying Litecoin for GBP from Coinbase with the idea of exchanging it when I have a sizeable chunk.

 

The top 5 or 6 cryptos will probably remain fairly highly correlated for at least another 6 months or so, so drip feeding into LTC is a reasonable enough plan.

[moneyscam]

1 hour ago, markyh said:

Interesting piece. Someone places a "physical" 275 BTC futures long contract last week for 1 years times @ $50000 strike price. Will other big Bitcoin holders do the same?

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-21/bitcoin-billionaires-may-have-found-a-way-to-cash-out

It's not quite a future, they have written a 1 yr covered call option with a strike of 50K to receive an option premium of 990K.

It's a nice trade for the bitcoin holder if BTC prices continue to rise- at expiry the spot price will either be below, above or at the strike price.

If above, say 70K, the call holder will exercise the option and pay 13.75m for BTC's now valued at (275*70) = 19.25m. Profit = 19.25-13.75-.99 = 5.01m

The option writer will receive 19.25+.99= 20.24m banking the gain in difference of spot price between when he wrote the option and the option matured as well as receiving the option premium.

If at maturity the spot price is below, say 30K, then the call holder will not exercise their option and it will expire worthless. Call buyer paid 990K and call writer receives 990K. Call writer gets his physical BTC back as well.

For the call writer and holder of physical BTC, he is still in a good position. When he wrote the option the price of the BTC he placed at the clearing house was 16363.64 (4.5m/275) and now they are worth 30K. So he can sell the BTC at spot and bank a nice profit or he could write another option! He also received 990K in option premium.

The above all assumes BTC price is above 16363 at time of expiry.

The call buyer either believes spot BTC will be above strike by expiry, or they believe the spot price will trend higher thus increasing the value of the option which they can sell on at a profit assuming they don't get murdered by the theta (time decay of the option).

Edited December 23, 2017 by moneyscam

[scottbeard]

15 hours ago, adamLancs said:

I find it hard to imagine people selling out of anything other than sheer blind panic...
...
This is happening. Quote me, 5 years. Buy & hold, 10% in alts. DO NOT FALTER.

I can see the logic/benefits of cryptocurrencies as money - as long as their value stops being so volatile they match the economic definition of money better than fiat currencies, for example, because they're limited in supply.

But I'm still struggling to see why any one currency in particular (BTC or any other) is a good 5 year investment.  I can see scenarios where it pays off...but I can also see scenarios in which BTC is abandoned and falls to zero whilst other cryptocurrencies take its place.  

The whole point about true money is that it maintains its value over time, not increases it.  The way that, for example, a gold coin in Roman times could buy you a new suit.  And today a gold coin would....still buy you a new suit.  True money doesn't get its value inflated away, but nor does it make you rich.  It just transports your purchasing power through time.

What's the logic as to why the current crop of currencies is a good investment?  I'm genuinely interested here, as it's the financial hot topic of the year really.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

On 08/01/2017 at 7:37 PM, Peter Hun said:

You mean it's ******ing useless without a computer and Internet.

Whereas Gold is usable .....

When. You. Realy. Need. It.

Which is the whole point of Gold.

I still say gold is the ultimate insurance.

The world will run out of rare earth minerals one day, and we’ll be back to steam traction and valve computing.

 

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

2 hours ago, oracle said:

yes indeed, waiting on "show me the money 2.0" to turn up.

will get interesting if ebay and a few more start actually adopting it...at the moment,it is under consideration.

factors still required for mass adoption:

1) more exchanges allowing conversion of fiat to crypto/crypto to fiat

2)a universal wallet,both desktop and mobile- must be idiot-proof with a nice GUI,and also have built in currency convertor(including fiat).At the moment exodus wallet wins top GUI, myetherwallet best coin spread.Ethos and Iconomi both working on the convertors/  a hybrid of all 3 would be the sweet spot IMHO.

3)some big name companies saying "bitcoin accepted here"

4)improved security. liking biometric verification via blockchain concept, so decided to put a few quid in Civic for this reason.

And there in lies the issue.

Bitcoin adoption by firms is falling off a cliff. It is too volatile and likely to crash in value.

XRP, IOTA and Ethereum will almost certainly replace BTC.

[zugzwang]

10 hours ago, Muddlehead said:

 

 

We don't have hyperinflation of everything though, so how is that correct?

Close enough.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/19/bubbles-appearing-in-markets-from-bitcoin-to-fine-art-strategist-says.html

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

22 minutes ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

I still say gold is the ultimate insurance.

The world will run out of rare earth minerals one day, and we’ll be back to steam traction and valve computing.

 

Running out of rare earths on earth in a resource sense will never cause a problem. Reasons are :

i) Rare earths are useful because currently they are optimal, but they can be replaced by almost as good materials.

ii) Tech is changing so fast by the time they run out we probably won't be using them.

iii) If rare earths became scarce and were useful then we would go off the planet to get them.

It's unlikely that any resource running out gradually is going to cause issues. What will cause issues is politics and monopolisation of supply. That can cause a cliff edge that is difficult to adapt to in the short term - ie China monopolising the supply because the US lets it, then China refusing to supply for political reasons. New mines can be opened up, but it's not the sort of thing you can do by clicking your fingers and the mining can have some unpleasant consequences (which is mainly why China have become the world leaders in supply of rare earths).

[dannyf]

3 hours ago, Glental said:

I'd like to buy a small amount of BTC and ETH each month (£100-200 combined). Do fees make this unobtainable? After exchange fees, credit card fees, sterling conversion fees and mining fees I'm concerned there won't be much left.

I'm open to using a different exchange, payment method and approach in general. Any suggestions?

At the moment I've just been buying Litecoin for GBP from Coinbase with the idea of exchanging it when I have a sizeable chunk.

 

You can buy the tiniest amounts you want on gdax for 0% or 0.5% commission (depending on whether you’re the market maker).

I use a US bank account and have no other fees. You would have to check what currency conversion fees there might be, and using a credit card is always going to be an expensive way to do it.

[doomed]

https://blog.bitpay.com/minimum-invoice-update/

[evetsm]

8 minutes ago, doomed said:

https://blog.bitpay.com/minimum-invoice-update/

Use PayPal for that.

[doomed]

1 minute ago, evetsm said:

Use PayPal for that.

LOL. We have a world changing technology and you want to pull the ladder up on the rest of the world because you got in early. The most valuable and secure chain will be the one everybody uses. Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin now. Bitcoin legacy is toast in 2018.

[Eddie_George]

9 minutes ago, doomed said:

LOL. We have a world changing technology and you want to pull the ladder up on the rest of the world because you got in early. The most valuable and secure chain will be the one everybody uses. Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin now. Bitcoin legacy is toast in 2018.

It's 2020 in Venezuela and BCash is ubiquitous among Venezuelans for transacting with each other to buy food and provisions -- Maduro is still in power. Such is the success of BCash across the world, it now has 128MB blocks to keep transaction fees low. Unfortunately, only a handful of data-centres that house BCash nodes in Venezuela have the infrastructure to cope with this demand. 

In September of 2020, unable to raise taxes, Maduro's government is backed into a corner and he orders his army to shut-down these data-centres. They do so, rendering millions of Venezulans' money unspendable. Many have no other source of wealth and starve to death.

[dugsbody]

10 minutes ago, doomed said:

LOL. We have a world changing technology and you want to pull the ladder up on the rest of the world because you got in early. The most valuable and secure chain will be the one everybody uses. Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin now. Bitcoin legacy is toast in 2018.

What if bitcoin increases the block size?

[doomed]

1 minute ago, dugsbody said:

What if bitcoin increases the block size?

The miners will not allow it because it is 'contentious'. That is why Bitcoin Cash was created in the first place, this battle has been going on for a few years.

[evetsm]

10 minutes ago, doomed said:

LOL. We have a world changing technology and you want to pull the ladder up on the rest of the world because you got in early. The most valuable and secure chain will be the one everybody uses. Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin now. Bitcoin legacy is toast in 2018.

The only world changing tech is decentralized security. The rest is old hat. Btrash is in the pack of also rans to become the SQL database of choice to do the small consumer transactions. And it's not even in the front running for that.

 

Satoshi:
Dec 21
""Bitcoin Cash" is centralized sock puppetry"

 

[Eddie_George]

10 minutes ago, dugsbody said:

What if bitcoin increases the block size?

They already did. We have at least 2MB, but certain companies (Coinbase, Blockchain.com, BitPay) are dragging their feet out of malice, so it hasn't yet rolled out fully.

Edited December 23, 2017 by Eddie_George

[evetsm]

2 minutes ago, doomed said:

The miners will not allow it because it is 'contentious'. That is why Bitcoin Cash was created in the first place, this battle has been going on for a few years.

Liar. The miner(singular: bitmain) won't allow it because it doesn't want bitcoin's segwit, because that breaks the scam called asicboost that is used to game the mining rewards.

Every which way you look btrash is a scam run by crooks.

[doomed]

I hope others can see how retarded the arguments are from the 2 useful idiots above.

[Eddie_George]

1 minute ago, doomed said:

I hope others can see how retarded the arguments are from the 2 useful idiots above.

You never refute any of my arguments. What's your response to my Venezuela scenario?

[evetsm]

1 minute ago, doomed said:

I hope others can see how retarded the arguments are from the 2 useful idiots above.

Who, Satoshi ?

""Bitcoin Cash" is centralized sock puppetry"

 

[doomed]

1 minute ago, Eddie_George said:

You never refute any of my arguments. What's your response to my Venezuela scenario?

There does not have to be a single node in Venezuela for them to use Bitcoin. If you disagree with this please explain why.

[evetsm]

1 minute ago, doomed said:

There does not have to be a single node in Venezuela for them to use Bitcoin. If you disagree with this please explain why.

You missed the point. As usual. The nodes can be concentrated anywhere and they then are at risk to be shutdown by bad actors. With btrash they will HAVE to be concentrated somewhere. They are then security holes.

Distribution of the network=distribution of nodes=security

[dugsbody]

9 minutes ago, evetsm said:

Who, Satoshi ?

""Bitcoin Cash" is centralized sock puppetry"

http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/

[doomed]

10 minutes ago, evetsm said:

You missed the point. As usual. The nodes can be concentrated anywhere and they then are at risk to be shutdown by bad actors. With btrash they will HAVE to be concentrated somewhere. They are then security holes.

Distribution of the network=distribution of nodes=security

A balance between usability and decentralisation needs to be achieved. Focusing on decentralisation whilst ignoring usability is going to be what kills the Core chain. 

Bitcoin could easily 20x on chain capacity with people still able to run a node at home on a semi decent laptop today.

Edited December 23, 2017 by doomed

[adamLancs]

1 hour ago, scottbeard said:

I can see the logic/benefits of cryptocurrencies as money - as long as their value stops being so volatile they match the economic definition of money better than fiat currencies, for example, because they're limited in supply.

But I'm still struggling to see why any one currency in particular (BTC or any other) is a good 5 year investment.  I can see scenarios where it pays off...but I can also see scenarios in which BTC is abandoned and falls to zero whilst other cryptocurrencies take its place.  

The whole point about true money is that it maintains its value over time, not increases it.  The way that, for example, a gold coin in Roman times could buy you a new suit.  And today a gold coin would....still buy you a new suit.  True money doesn't get its value inflated away, but nor does it make you rich.  It just transports your purchasing power through time.

What's the logic as to why the current crop of currencies is a good investment?  I'm genuinely interested here, as it's the financial hot topic of the year really.

Well, there are multiple mindsets here, one is that Bitcoin is the one God and alts are evil, another is that Bitcoin is the spearhead and alts are the spear, and that Bitcoin and price speculation are driving -or- at least, have driven so far, investment in a whole new sector of blockchain and blockchain-like technologies. And that's the camp I'm in. But I believe Bitcoin will be around for a long time leading the charge. It has become the brand, the word on everyone's lips, something that is very important in a world with many languages and little understanding thus far.

Buying alts vs. buying Btc so far has been a not-so-fruitful endeavour for many, unless selection & timing was quite accurate. In dollar terms many of the top 100, perhaps even 200 have risen substantially. 

My own play on this is that Bitcoin will continue to lead the charge, and the current crop of currencies will continue to diversify and strengthen behind it. However, the ICO mania of the spring has dissipated somewhat, so the criteria for new altcoins entering the arena to attract investment has become more stringent, and many existing coins have a significant headstart by now. Having watched this unfold since 2010-2011, it seems we are now moving away from wave 3 of digital tokens into a potential wave 4 of digital tokens, with the criteria for investment strengthening with each wave....

So at 0: Bitcoin

Wave 1) Litecoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, Primecoin

Wave 2) Ripple, Monero, Dash(Darkcoin), Nxt, Dogecoin etc there were about hundred

Wave 3) Everything this year 1000+ coins, see http://www.coinmarketcap.com it has exploded due to ICO mania

Wave 4) ???

For me personally, this is deja-vu... having seen the internet grow from almost a small acorn into the grand oak it is today. But there is so many surprises, nobody can quite fathom what is coming next IMO. Still, many of those earlier coins are still performing strongly.

I do not for one minute follow Bitcoin blindly, the developers have problems to solve as do other coins.

Therefore I don't pretend to know what is going to be the worthwhile investment. Only that an investment is probably going to prove worthwhile. There are multiple avenues for investment, holding your own portfolio of Bitcoin & alts, buying a tracker fund, buying into a crypto fund listed on Iconomi or the upcoming Melonport protocol. Or simply sticking some Bitcoin in a cold wallet and getting on with life. Keeping your eyes on what's happening over the next 5 years is going to be very important and even a small investment in alts can pay off big.

To answer your point, because <1% of the population of the world is invested, and many of them in small amounts of their total net worth, we are still very early on the adoption curve. Because of this and until such a point that the adoption curve starts to flatten, the stability that you desire from a currency is going to be hard to achieve. For me, the currency aspect of Bitcoin has always been a promise to deliver on it's potential as a currency, and you have to take that for what it's worth. Since I have more faith in technology than I do of politicians and bankers to solve the world's ills, it is a natural instinct to put faith in that potential, whether it be Bitcoin or something that usurps it.

Not everybody has that faith and they will continue to enjoy being fed by a system that IMO, feeds them only what it needs to in order to keep the rich rich and the poor poor.